Linda Lian, co-founder and CEO of Common Room, recounts how she recruited her co-founders Francis and Viraj through persistent cold outreach.
0:00 / 0:05exact quote · 5.2s
720p mp4 · rendered on demand · StarZero watermark
“I reached out to Francis and Baraj on LinkedIn, and they ignored me. I didn't hear back from them at all.”
quote is from the automated transcript, cleaned for reading:
filler sounds and stutters are removed, nothing is rephrased. names can be misheard
(the analysis reads context, assessments check outside sources). how →
More from Linda Lian
PredictionNot checkable as stated
Lian: Common Room bans the 'shit sandwich' method of giving feedback
“One of the things that I'm not a huge fan of is the shit sandwich. Which is this notion that you want to say something nice, and then, you know, give a direct piece of feedback, and then say something nice again. That's not really how I want to communicate, an…”
Linda LianApr 1, 2021▶ 15:1220VC: How To Deliver Feedback with Compassion and Clarity, WTF Are Values Really and How To Instill Them & Raising $50M+ From Index and Greylock but Remaining in Stealth for 12 Months with Linda Lian, Co-Founder & CEO @ CommonRoom
Insight
Lian: Common Room's true competition is inertia, not rivals
“I genuinely don't think for what we're trying to do, any company at all is the competition. I really see our competition as inertia, as the way that companies are already doing things, as human nature.”
Linda LianApr 1, 2021▶ 31:2820VC: How To Deliver Feedback with Compassion and Clarity, WTF Are Values Really and How To Instill Them & Raising $50M+ From Index and Greylock but Remaining in Stealth for 12 Months with Linda Lian, Co-Founder & CEO @ CommonRoom
Insight
Linda Lian: Startup aha moments unfold over years, not single instances
“Aha moments aren't really a moment, and for me, I think there were really three ingredients to my aha moment in building common room that happened over the course of probably years.”
Linda LianApr 1, 2021▶ 3:0820VC: How To Deliver Feedback with Compassion and Clarity, WTF Are Values Really and How To Instill Them & Raising $50M+ From Index and Greylock but Remaining in Stealth for 12 Months with Linda Lian, Co-Founder & CEO @ CommonRoom
Insight
Linda Lian: Company values serve as a framework for constructive disagreement
“I always saw Amazon's values as a way, a framework for disagreement. It enables employees to lean on the values to advocate for what they think is right, even when it is counter to what their leadership may think.”
Linda LianApr 1, 2021▶ 8:1920VC: How To Deliver Feedback with Compassion and Clarity, WTF Are Values Really and How To Instill Them & Raising $50M+ From Index and Greylock but Remaining in Stealth for 12 Months with Linda Lian, Co-Founder & CEO @ CommonRoom
Disclosure
Common Room considers changing two company values rarely used in daily operations
“So right now we're actually thinking about changing two of them because we don't use them very much in our day to day life.”
Linda LianApr 1, 2021▶ 11:0220VC: How To Deliver Feedback with Compassion and Clarity, WTF Are Values Really and How To Instill Them & Raising $50M+ From Index and Greylock but Remaining in Stealth for 12 Months with Linda Lian, Co-Founder & CEO @ CommonRoom
Insight
Lian: Transparently speaking truth is an act of workplace compassion
“One of the most compassionate things you can do in life or in work is to speak the truth and to speak it transparently.”
Linda LianApr 1, 2021▶ 13:2920VC: How To Deliver Feedback with Compassion and Clarity, WTF Are Values Really and How To Instill Them & Raising $50M+ From Index and Greylock but Remaining in Stealth for 12 Months with Linda Lian, Co-Founder & CEO @ CommonRoom
Made with StarZero
Turn any episode into a week of clips.
This entire site, over 1,200 episodes transcribed, diarized, checked and made playable,
runs on the StarZero media pipeline. Drop in your own episode and the podcast clipper finds the
moments worth sharing, cuts them, captions them, and reframes them for every feed.
We use essential cookies to make the site work. With your permission we
also use analytics cookies (Google Analytics and Mixpanel) to understand
usage and improve StarZero. See our Cookie Policy.